DE

The Great Journey

Encounters in a labyrinth of lights

3000 candles, 300 suitcases, eight characters acting the stories of their hopes and disappointments in simultaneous cycles throughout the performance. The visitors themselves become travellers – become players – searching for the way to the centre. Pick out a suitcase and seek out the path.

A fool has set up his fairground booth. He catches images out of the air, tells crazy stories, and plays pranks on his audience. Anyone who steps through the door of his booth enters a whole new world: a maze created by thousands of lights. Visitors become travellers: suitcases, doubling as peepshows, are waiting to be picked up and carried along. Figures who are also searching for their way live in the labyrinth: the prince who doesn’t want to be king; the bird woman who never gives up her dream of flying; the lamplight dreamer, who paints magical illuminated images from a foreign land. Eight mysterious figures tell of their dreams, of failing to get any further, and of their tiny islands of happiness: poetic games on the way to the centre.

The labyrinth is open for three hours. The scenes are played continuously in a loop throughout this time.
The Great Journey can be performed in a wide variety of locations: on large squares; in parks (several types of labyrinths can be constructed); in tunnels; also indoors in large halls and other special venues.
“It was an overwhelming sight.Theater Anu had used thousands of candles to transform the Schloss gardens into a labyrinth of warm light. The players who populated the labyrinth evolved powerful, archetypal images and created beings who both succeeded and failed, often holding us at one spot, preventing progress on the ‘great journey’: fallen angels, searching for the land of their dreams, bound to their own suitcase, or their life’s baggage, or to a Sisyphean task with no goal. Seen from the balcony of the Schloss it was a breathtaking view of symmetrically aligned life-lines, made entirely of light.” Badisches Tagblatt

For twenty years now Theater Anu have been exploring the potential of poetic theatre in public spaces. Under the direction of Bille Behr and Stefan Behr, and in collaboration with a variety of artists, the company have played in parks, squares and many non-theatrical locations such as tunnels, churches and industrial halls. Their installations and performances create unique spaces of experience and memory which invite visitors to immerse themselves in imaginary worlds, to be enchanted and transformed.

Every year, 40,000 visitors witness Theater Anu’s sensuous, unassuming productions in squares and parks and other open spaces. The company creates touring productions and also commissioned work for special events.

Please find here a brochure detailing all the current touring shows of Theater Anu.